Our original song for asking and answering about ability to do simple actions. It’s an infectious, high-energy song which gets your students doing all the actions as they sing along to the song. Here is a sample:

Gestures and activities to use with the “What Can You Do?” song

The actions to this song are simple – simply do each action as they come up in the song. It’s probably best for everyone to do the actions on the spot otherwise things could get a bit hectic!

Using the “What Can You Do?” song in class

This song is great fun – your students will love doing all the actions as they sing it. It can even be used a simple energy burner when your students get over excited or restless. It is also a great way to learn the patterns “Can you …?” and “I can …”. This lesson works well as a follow up to teaching the actions vocab in a preceding lesson. However, we’ll treat this lesson as the first time the action vocab has been introduced to your students

Teach the actions vocab. Start with flashcards of the actions in the song (jump, run, swim, hop, stomp my feet, turn around) – we have these actions flashcards available for printing here:

Have all your students stand up and pull out the first flashcard (e.g. “Jump”). Get the students to do the action as soon as you reveal the card. Shout out the word as you are all doing the action and encourage everyone to shout the word as well. Do this for all 6 cards.

Play “Quick flashcard actions”. Lay the flashcards face down on the ground and mix them up. With your students still standing, quickly turn over one card for all to see and shout out the action (e.g. jump). Everyone jumps for a second or two. Then turn over another card and shout the action for everyone to do. This should be quick paced with actions changing frequently. After a few rounds mix the cards up again and pick up one card. This time don’t show it to everyone – look at it yourself and then shout out the word (e.g. “Run!) and see if everyone does the right action. If they are having problems show the card. Do this for all of the cards until everyone is getting the actions right.

Play “Teacher Says”. This is the game “Simon Says” but using the word “teacher”, or your name, instead. Go straight into the game (no explanations necessary) by saying “Teacher says (jump)”. Do the action and make sure everyone else follows along. Do a few more “run, turn around, swim, etc.” Then at some point give a command without the “Teacher says” part (e.g. “Jump!”). First time round, everyone will jump, so make it very clear that they shouldn’t do this when you don’t say “Teacher says”. After a while your students will get the hang of it. Play the game faster and faster. When a student makes a mistake they have to sit the rest of the game out. The last student standing is the winner.

Teach “Can you ..?”, “I can …”. Take out two more flashcards for the actions “fly” and “ride a bike”. Have all your students sit down. Pull out the “Jump” flashcard. Say “I can jump” – point to yourself and nod your head. Then jump and again say “I can jump”. Do the same for another flashcard (e.g.run). Then pull out the fly flashcard. Look surprised and shake your head, saying “No. I can’t fly”. Motion trying to fly but falling on the ground. You can also ask some students “Can you fly?” – some are bound to say “Yes”, but look shocked and say “No. No I don’t think so.”. Next do a few more actions (turn around, hop) and then pull out the “ride a bike” flashcard. Again, say “I can’t ride a bike” and motion trying to but falling off. Then finish with the remaining flashcards (you can choose whether to say you can or can’t swim).

Now, pull out a flashcard (e.g. hop) and say to the class “Can you hop?”. Encourage everyone to say, “Yes, I can hop” and show you how. Do this with all of the flashcards – try and encourage some to say they can’t do some actions (e.g. ride a bike, swim and especially fly!).

Sing the “What Can You Do Song”. Place the flashcards on the board in order of the song, or pin up the “What Can You Do?” song poster. Play the song and sing along – encourage everyone to sing and do the actions with you. For the first time you use this song, play it a couple of times.

Do a “Can you / I can worksheet”. To finish off this section of the lesson, give out worksheets which have the vocab from the song. As your students are doing the worksheets, ask questions (e.g. “What is this?”, “Can you swim?”, etc.). You can also give a worksheet for homework.